STS2 update ...

[John Shott]

stsetch2 community:

I thought that I'd send out an update as to where things stand on 
stsetch2.  Because STS will not schedule visits until a purchase order 
is in place, we have opened a blanket order with STS that should 
eliminate future delays when we place a service call to STS.  That order 
was finally opened on Tuesday. Because of uncertainty in the length of 
time that field service will spend at other sites our best information 
for STS is that they will be here next week, but we do not yet know 
which day they will arrive.

In the meantime, Jim McVittie and Elmer have been looking closely at the 
matching network and matching network controller to identify the source 
of the RF drop outs.  Yesterday, they found some intermittent contacts 
in the wiring harness that senses and controls the position of the 
variable capacitors in the matching network and are in the process of 
repairing/replacing the appropriate components to determine if these 
intermittent contacts on the control side are responsible for the 
observed dropouts.  While it is too early to say that this IS the source 
of the drop outs ... we need to complete those repairs and then do some 
long runs to confirm this ... we are actively pursuing this path and 
should have more definitive information either later today or tomorrow.

We know that this is a vitally important tool to many of you and that it 
has taken a long time to identify the source of these intermittent 
problems and resolve them.  We understand that this tool needs to be in 
a condition where it runs reliably and that when it fails we need to be 
able to more quickly call for outside assistance when we cannot resolve 
that issue ourselves in a timely fashion.  We believe that our new open 
blanket order will eliminate much of the delay in that process in the 
future.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions,

John